Caruana Prospers In Sao Paulo

Fabiano Caruana scored his third win in four games at the Chess Final Masters in Sao Paulo to extend his lead in the tournament.

Lev Aronian is in second place after drawing with Magnus Carlsen, but the battle between the world's #1 and #2 featured remarkable mutual blunders by the players. Carlsen's 27.Bf4?? should have lost on the spot, but Aronian missed his opportunity and the game was drawn.

Sergey Karjakin was unable to break down Vishy Anand's defence and their game was also drawn.

The players have just one more game to play in Sao Paulo before they take a break and reconvene for the second half of the tournament in Bilbao on 7 October.

The standings after 4 rounds (3-1-0 scoring)

Name

Fed

Elo

Pts

Fabiano Caruana

ITA

2773

10

Levon Aronian

ARM

2816

6

Magnus Carlsen

NOR

2843

5

Viswanathan Anand

IND

2780

4

Francisco Vallejo Pons

ESP

2697

2

Sergey Karjakin

RUS

2778

2

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Fabiano Caruana has an impressive lead

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Lev Aronian and Magnus Carlsen both blundered!

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The Chess Masters Final is a 6-player double round-robin event which is being held half in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and half in Bilbao, Spain. The Sao Paulo leg takes place from 23-29 September and the Bilbao leg is from 7-13 October.

The tournament uses the "Sofia" anti-draw rules, meaning that players can only draw by mutual agreement with the permission of the arbiter. The "Bilbao" scoring system (3-1-0) is also in operation.

@CharlieJohnson: Interesting concept....... "earned blunder". So in contrast to it's MLB counterpart, the ERA (earned run average), a chess player's EBA (earned blunder average) would ideally go up as the player's career progresses........

As faras I am concerned, there are no "lucky blunders" in chess. Just blunders. Caruana chose to play an interesting line in the advance French, which apparently with best play from both leads to a drawn position.

Good so far, but some elements reveal that there was no real home preparation, and it was rather an OTB inspiration (which is not characteristic of the Caruana playing etiquette, but still applaudable).

So- engines say that Vallejo's 15...Rc8 was inaccurate, while 15...Qa5 or 15...Bb4 would force white going for the typical drawing melee on the kingside. Strangely enough, Caru did not go for the engine suggestion (17.Rb1 instead of 17.Qg4), and then the game is pretty much a forced draw. After the ONLY correct move 20...Qc7 white can hack a bit, risking a somewhat worse posion where Black may eventually blunder, or play safe 21.Bxg6 Bxe3+ (only move) 22.Qxe3 fg6 23.Rf6 Qc2, when white has no more than a draw.

I'd love for a master to review the Caruana game and comment whether 20...Qd8 was a lucky blunder (for Caruana) or an earned blunder. I think that an earned blunder occurs when a player has so consistently put difficult choices to his opponent that, sooner or later, a slip-up is likely. A lucky blunder is when your opponent just inexplicably self-destructs.

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